Civic Participation Workshops: A Creative Methodology

A. Remesar - E.Pol. 

CER POLIS.University of Barcelona

Introduction

Sant Adrià of Besòs is a small town (35.000 inhabitants) bordering with Barcelona. Historically it has been a territory without municipal entity, until, with the Regional Plan of 1952, the territorial planning of Franco conferred municipal statute to the territory. In the years of industrial development Sant Adrià of Besòs became in a kind of a metropolitan dump through the establishment, along with polluting Industry, of some metropolitan facilities (heating and electrical plants, water treatment plants, etc.).

Sant Adrià of Besòs gets his name from the river Besòs, a strange and dangerous river like most of the Mediterranean Rivers. The river divides the city in two big areas that has become a territorial and social division of the city. Some of the degraded neighbourhoods in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona are concentrated on the right riverbank . It is this territory that, at the moment , is being planned as the territory in which the great Barcelona can close the urban development of its waterfront.

The urban office Barcelona Regional, has proposed a plan for development of the area that, among other things, contemplates the regeneration of the whole Besòs river with the intention of transforming it into a great metropolitan river park. At fiirst glance it seems a good idea, but is this project good for Sant Adrià's development?, is the proposed project the best one possible?, are the social needs of the population attended to?. These have been some of the questions that have brought about the experience of the workshops of civic participation.

The CD ROM that you are watching reproduces, in multimedia format , the exhibition of the first workshop of civic participation, developed under the auspices of the Area of civic participation of the City council of Sant Adrià of Besòs and co-ordinated by the research group «environmental Intervention: city, art, society, sustainability» at the University of Barcelona.

The course of this exhibition seeks to give evidence of the working process and the conclusions that the first workshop of Civic Participation has arrived at one, which for more than 9 months, has analysed, studied and has contributed solutions to one of Sant Adrià's structural problems: the river Besòs.

The workshop has approached the problem of the river, not only from the environmental, thematic outlook that, naturally, is important for the city, particularly in the context of the plans of regeneration of the whole of the river Besòs, but also from the perspective of rescuing the river in the context of the creation of a city model, in which this way of water, becomes a central element and articulator of the possible urban, social and community development of the city. For this purpose the central topic of the workshop has been that of the social uses that can be given to river in the context of its environmental regeneration.

Objectives of the workshop

We can isolate diverse implicit objectives in the formulation of this workshop.

• 1. - Objective participation. The group's work process and organisation have as their first objective, to empower the participation of the citizens regard to thinking, planning and conforming public use proposals, to approach, from a local and personal perspective, the possible developments and action plans on this territory of the city.
• 2. - Objective information. Through the development of the workshop and given the characteristics of the work that we will analyse later on, to seek a system of civic information based on the representability of the participants to set out and where possible to disseminate the information in their origin groups (Neighbourhood groups, cultural associations, etc)
• 3. - Objective education. Through the development of the activity, we seek to educate the participants in technical subjects and to be capable of territorial and regional analysis. Usually, this kind of training doesn't take place in the participative processes since the mediation of the technicians prevents the citizens to develop their discursive and project capabilities. Participation in the workshop also proposes to be a way of learning how to consider the real distance between the desire or the expectations and the viability of the conclusions.
• 4. - Objective: extension to the community. Because of its diffusive characteristics, the process and the results of the workshop enables, in a direct way, a good part of the population to « participate» in the discussion and critique of the obtained results, at the same time that the workshop becomes an open process, by being open to new incorporations and to the opinions of the population as a whole.

Methodology

Usually, the processes of civic participation are outlined from the social sciences own scopes and from the political praxis. In general, these processes become problem detection activities and consultation to find possible solutions, so the citizens™ participation is limited to these two poles of the process of decision making.

The workshop introduces, as nucleus of its activity, the project methodology. This methodology has characterised, up to now, the practice of such disciplines as Architecture, Design or Engineering, and more recently it has been extended to an important part of management environments, as much in the private company as in public administration.

The project methodology is sustained in three important elements:

1. The conceptualisation or design of scenarios (scenario planning) . It is not possible to develop a project if it doesn't fit in a frame that warrants its meaning. This frame can be considered, as a scenario in the entirety of the project will be developed. The study and identification of this scenario that facilitates the creation of projects that are autonomous, of quality and, mainly, non mimetical with regard to the images that can be got from other possible solutions through the media or of other informative systems. This design of scenarios supposes at the same time, to approach the local project from a wider perspective (dialectical locality - globality)
2. Demarcation of the topic to develop In this phase, after the construction of the scenario, one proceeds to define and to delimit the topic on which the workshop will turn and how it will proceed in the following phases. In this phase it is very important to rescue the memory, to dive in the historical, anthropologic and cultural past. In parallel, an analysis of the present and current situation should be developed regarding the topic that is being defined. The process is developed in a dialectical way, detecting the problems and needs of the present and contrasting them with the data arising from memories. It is fundamental to discover that the data of the present are conditioned by the past, but at the same time that certain problems of the present can have the same solutions that existed in the past. This procedure allows signals and signs of identity to be generated, which will define in an important way the development of the project.
3. The points in favour and against the topic to be developed. Hierarchization / territorialization of the possible needs. Once defined, the topic should be developed so that we obtain a very clear map of what can be in favour of and against it. The exploration in depth of the data of the present, making visible this data and the development of imaginative proposals will allow the weaknesses of the situation to be overcome and the process to begin.
   When concluding this work we begin the exercise of hierarchising the contributions in relation to their social importance for the population. This hierarchization should be accompanied by a territorialization when the topic is based on work in the territory.
   Three sessions of the «Workshop on Participation» were guided so that the group analysed, in a non directive way, the needs and problems that face the municipality of Sant Adrià of the Besòs at the present time.
   Later on, these items were prioritised by the participants and, lastly, they made proposals for their resolution (locating them in a map of the city). In the first of the sessions the group was divided in two subgroups (to facilitate their work) They were given general task to create a list of necessities and/ or problems facing the municipality.
   Later on, the two lists were analysed and discussed by the whole group, establishing a relationship between municipal needs and prob-lems according to the different environments to which they refered
   The morphology of the territory of the city is not gratuitous, it responds to its historical evolution. Important conclusions can be obtained through its study and conclusions can be drawn to get an outline of links between territorialization and hierarchy.
4. The form of the proposals. Project Phase. In a normal participation process, the workshop would have concluded its activity. In the previous phase it is possible to present a report that picks up the feasibility of the proposals. Later on these proposals will be re-read and re-interpreted by the technical and political apparatus of the town and translated into a formal project.
   Our question was and still is are the neighbours able to develop «the form» the data would take and realities that are contributed? Our methodology allows to respond affirmatively to this question. If the «Technician» is our resource, a barrier will be lifted ; a barrier that systematically operates between the citizens and the public administration. Obviously the mediation of this barrier responds to a structure and operating system that has derived from a kind of «enlightened despotism» that frames the final solutions to the proposals or projects in such a way they cannot be contributed to by «common humans» since they require an interface of technical character.
   If we analyse the project methodology we can find this argument lacks foundation. The definition of the proposals «form» implies two different phases. In the first phase, these proposals, shaped in sentences like «green areas», «recreational areas», etc, mustbe re-conceptualized in relation to the content parameter and to some general formal parameters. A green area can be a green area of grass or a Mediterranean green area of vegetation.
   Formally, these green areas can take diverse forms - those that the territory allows, those that we design (round, square, etc). We outline that, in this first project phase, there are not technical impediments, only the possibility to formalise proposals endowing them with specific content and approaching certain formal solutions. This process can be carried out by «common people».
   In essence this first phase allows us to establish those «managing directives» that are radically different from the materialisation of the project. In the second phase the intervention of certain technicians is crucial, in order to evaluate the viability of the project proposal and to outline definitive solutions to the proposals contained in the projects. There is nothing new about the real gap between the masterplans and the contributed specific solutions .
5. The communication of the proposal The normal procedure supposes a technical and political evaluation and appraisal of the civic participation processes. The methodology we propose outlines the need of evaluating the workshop by the community, since we can understand that the project is not completed if it is not refered back to the citizens to whom the project is directed. In this sense it is essential in order to fulfil the objectives 1, 2, and 4 (in smaller measure the 3), to revert the work to the citizens.
   Because of that it is necessary to develop a next phase for the workshop in which the participants outline, study and design the communication acts with the rest of the citizenship. We believe that the follow up process in Sant Adrià, constitutes a good model that allows, with slight retouches in function of each case, to establish the basic rules of the communication system within the city, with the citizens, at the same time as empowering the active participation of those who want to be involved in the final phase of the project
   The scheme of this development consists in:

5.1. - The exhibition. An exhibition should be designed that picks up the contents, phases, processes, aspects and essential proposals of the workshop. This exhibition is supported in two different formats. One is the classic that allows the exhibition to be shown to the entirety of the city territory, bringing the proposals toall the citizens. This exhibition form should be accompanied by new supports that allow the use of the Information Technology : CD- ROM and Web pages (when possible).
The participation can be boosted in a classic ways through the exhibitions. That is to say through questionnaires that capture the opinion of the visitors. If it is possible, also, that these questionnaires can have an electronic format that will make it possible for other sector of the population to participate with their suggestions.

5.2. - The explanation to the citizens.
The exhibition can gather faithfully the development of the whole project but it is necessary that, to facilitate the participation, the members of the workshop develop an intense contact task with the rest of the associative «fabric» that has not participated directly in the development, by means of organising work sessions with these groups to explain the experience «from the inside», that is to say, to present the experience as being centred more in the participative and work aspects than in the formal aspects of the results that the exhibition takes charge of developing. In these sessions it is very important to pick up the contributions, suggestions, comments and criticisms that the proposals of the workshop raised.

5.3. - The visibility.
The communication design also implies «media management». The workshop must be able to energise the local media (newspapers, magazines, bulletins, etc) so that these inform about the workshop, of its results and about the exhibition. This task is more complex if it should be applied to media of national coverage and, in this case, the participation of the City council can be decisive in working to promote the visibility of the workshop

6. - The critical analysis of the proposal
The last methodological stage consists on a general evaluation of the process developed by the workshop. This evaluation has two differentiated aspects. On one hand it is important that the contributions of the citizens picked up through the tour are incorporated in the project; the electronic nature of the CD-ROM and of the final publication of the experience providing a suitable means for this.
On the other hand, it is necessary that the workshop faces constructive criticism of technical and specialised «agents» who can analyse, value and expose in a public way the advantages and weakness of the presented proposals. The itinery can conclude in a forum session, in which a «panel» of experts contribute their considerations. These considerations should be picked up in the final conclusions.

When does the workshop conclude?

Formally the workshop concludes when the elaboration of the conclusions end. It doesn't mean, necessarily that the work has concluded. The possibility exists that auto-organizing processes emerge that give the participants of the workshop the chance to continue their task in the context of other participative scenarios. The possibility also exists that the participant's interests and the political will of the City council will lead to the prolongation of the workshop, rather than the continuation of the workshop, in another workshop that approaches, for example, the development of specific aspects of the proposal which require an itemised treatment, or othose aspects that have been criticised or rejected on the part of the population. Anyway, the workshop «X» concludes in the moment of the elaboration of conclusions. Starting from there a new workshop begins in which we repeat the presented cycle again.

Impact of the workshop

Depending a lot on wether the communication system has worked, the impact on the population can be considerable, especially if the City council assumes a pro-active role oriented to incorporate the proposals or part of them in its political strategies and of management.

However we would like to highlight the importance of another kind of impact. We refer to that the fact that the experiences that are carried out can configure a kind of «think tank» on participative processes and urban projects to be used, not just by the City Council, but to facilitate the use of these processes and projects on the part of other local Public Administrations, as much at regional, as at state or supraestate level.

In this sense the possibility of a global dissemination of the experiences (p.e. via Internet) is fundamental.